


Your Runaway Scars

by paperclipbitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Ordinary People, Duct Tape, Gen, Marauders, handwavy on the details, jenn writes december fics for people, kingsley shacklebolt makes alcohol in a bathtub, shutting the marauders in a concrete bunker was a stupid plan for everyone involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Futuristic dystopian!AU.</i> Peter has progressed to watching this whole thing between his fingers.  Remus doesn’t blame him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Runaway Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **therainbowsloth** @ lj.
> 
> [Title from _My Bulletproof Heart_ by MCR.] I wasn’t sure from the prompt if I was supposed to leave them as magic people or not, but then I figure if you want to read them as magic freedomfighters you can… read between the lines of the books, so I made them regular people.

Remus is reasonably sure that a few hundred years back, Sirius would’ve been _great_ at this. He can picture him now, actually, all flowing black curls and blazing eyes, a ridiculous coat with tails, straddling some barricade somewhere with a flag and a curl to his lip. He’d quite happily have run off to France to join the poor and disillusioned when that was a thing, even though he doesn’t speak a word of French. He’d have been the perfect revolutionary, back in the day.

Unfortunately for everyone, they are not in those days, and Sirius is just really, really _irritating_.

Pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off an impending migraine, Remus keeps his gaze on the battered book in his lap and does not look up at the argument currently raging on the other side of the room, the one making Peter cringe away and dart his eyes nervously, the one that’s making Remus have to repeatedly remind himself that killing Sirius and James will only be beneficial in the short term.

“I mean, what kind of _utter knob_ trades the last of the ammunition for _tea bags_?” James is demanding, loudly, for the sixth time in about as many minutes.

“We’re not going to last very long without tea bags!” Sirius protests. Remus doesn’t look up, but he can imagine that this is accompanied by the fiery headtoss Sirius has developed that he thinks looks heroic and in fact… really doesn’t. Remus hasn’t pointed this out, however; life’s unbearable enough already.

“And what are we going to do when they come for us?” James snaps. “Offer them bloody tea and biscuits?”

“Well,” Remus cuts in mildly, “no, because we don’t _have_ any biscuits.”

James and Sirius finally turn to look at him, all flying dark hair and flushed cheeks and boys who think that they’re heroes even though they’re wearing clothes made of messy scraps of knitting that wasn’t good to begin with and they’re both perpetually covered in concrete dust. 

“No _biscuits_?” James demands.

Peter has progressed to watching this whole thing between his fingers. Remus doesn’t blame him.

Sirius flings himself down at their haphazard bank of radios, computer terminals and scanners, making the repossessed Ikea chair creak warningly, and immediately calls up a message frequency.

“Are you about to radio everyone and risk discovery of the movement because you want _biscuits_?” Remus asks.

Sirius is magnificent when backed into a corner, when it’s time to go out all guns blazing and there’s a good chance he’ll either die or get an amazingly drastic scar, and one of the best soldiers their army has. The rest of the time, he’s at worst a liability, and at best an absolute pain in the arse.

“…no,” Sirius says slowly, taking his hands away from the keyboard.

Remus lets out a silent sigh of relief.

-

Thursday finds Lily and Tonks desperate for somewhere to hide out; bleary under three a.m. emergency lighting, Remus hands out bandages and boils water and summarises updates for Peter to send to the women’s cell. Lily, flaming hair lank and dirty, grits her teeth with her head thrown back and fights not to flinch away from Sirius’ hands. The wound in her side isn’t deep, but it’s dirty and bleeding a lot and they’re low on painkillers; luckily, Tonks brings an unbroken bottle of Kingsley’s best moonshine out of her pack, and while it’s possible Shacklebolt just brews it out of non-poisonous-looking berries and bleach, it really does the trick once you’ve choked it down.

Tonks, her face a mess of bruises and fast-drying blood, sits beside Remus frantically trying to put her gun back together. The cracked grip has bitten into her palms, but she’s more focused on the duct tape Remus handed her before she even asked. Their lives are held together with duct-tape now: weapons, technology, homes, furniture, clothes. Perhaps if they’d all toed the line that they were supposed to toe they’d still have access to new things or clean water or actual medical care or plentiful food, but there are no guarantees anymore, after all.

James is drinking more of the bitter alcohol than any of them, holding a torch in one bloody, shaking hand so that Sirius can see exactly what he’s doing while he digs shrapnel out of Lily’s wound. Remus keeps trying to send him warning looks, but James has eyes for no one but Lily. It’s understandable, but it isn’t helping anyone. 

“Save some of that for the rest of us,” Lily croaks, reaching for him until the movement makes her wince and Sirius snaps at her to stay still, oblivious to the bloody streaks he’s smeared onto his face.

“Were they followed?” Remus asks Peter, loud enough to cut through any bickering that may be about to break out; it’s really not the moment.

“Frank went scouting and says he thinks not; Molly and the others have gone into lockdown just in case,” Peter replies, fingers flying across the keys.

“We just weren’t quick enough,” Tonks says between her teeth, slotting a magazine of bullets into place. She shakes her gun and it holds; Remus takes the weapon from her and hands her a clean bandage, soaked in antiseptic. She glares at him and he glares back until she gives in and presses it between her wounded palms.

They’re really not equipped to deal with this; the nearest hospital bunker is a few streets over, but they can’t risk sending them a message until the streets quiet down.

Lily’s breath catches on a shiver of pain, and Remus braces himself for a long night.

-

It’s hard to remember what life was like before Remus started living in a concrete underground bunker half-full of computers, with restless people who one would never, ever wish to be shut in an enclosed space for a long period of time with. He thinks it involved considerably more daylight, more regular showers, and less constant bickering, but he tries not to remember most of that life, because a lot of it only existed because he was living a lie, and whatever happens next he’ll never have that life back.

James’ past involved loving parents who disappeared in the night; perhaps they’re imprisoned somewhere, as opposed to actually dead, but they’ll never be the same again either. Sirius is a son of the establishment, with rich angry parents who expected him to step into the government he now fights against. On cruel nights, when Sirius is drunk and angrily writing manifestos that don’t mean anything on paper they can’t afford to spare, Remus wonders if Sirius just wants to piss them off, rather than bring down a regime that oppresses a nation.

Peter… well, Peter has always done whatever James has done. He’d probably have preferred it if his life hadn’t taken this turn, but he does whatever he’s told to do and he doesn’t complain as much as he could. His heart’s in the right place, Remus is fairly sure.

There’s a divide somewhere, between the people who fell into the movement because they had no choice, or because they lost something or someone and felt the need to rise up, and the people who joined because of principles, hypotheticals; who still have something that matters left in the world.

Sometimes, Remus wonders what it would be like to have that luxury.

-

Theirs is a war of subterfuge, of raids on prisons and death camps, of hacked airwaves and smuggled printed pamphlets, of smashed technologies and brief assassinations. There are those who want to light the fuse and start an all-out war, collapsing buildings and dying crowds, a new world built in fire. But Remus, at least, reads the history, and he knows how it ends. 

What no one told anyone before they signed up is that being a revolutionary doesn’t just involve the exciting adrenaline bits, the parts where you’re covered in blood and a little bit electrocuted and people are screaming at you to cut the _right fucking wire_ , or the parts where you’re all brave and wonderful and magnificent, carving out a new world.

But it’s impossible for people to be noble when they’re bickering about laundry and whose turn it is to fix the leaking roof this time and if someone ate the last of the bourbon creams and who is wearing whose socks. 

Sirius and James are outdoors people, not made for being cooped up in the same room day after day; they play half-hearted football sometimes, which has broken most of the equipment and light fittings at least once, and engage in pointless bickering that can last for _days_. Remus tries to block them out as best as possible; he and Tonks run an underground lending library of banned books. Not just to spread about words that the government doesn’t want them reading; but to keep everyone entertained in the weeks and weeks of inactivity.

Remus suspects that Sirius is in negotiations to open some kind of speakeasy with Kingsley, though where he thinks he’s going to have it is anybody’s guess; if he tries to open any kind of bar in the bunks area, Remus is going to have to engage in some mild strangling.

Peter and Sirius drop in from their latest trip, bringing bullets and cans of fresh water and a box of provisions that will probably be horrible but right now, hidden from view, contain the possibility of something tasty. 

“You didn’t barter something important for teabags again, did you?” Remus asks.

He keeps a hidden stash of money, antiseptic, bullets and teabags, because he’s known James and Sirius for a long time, and he’s not an _idiot_. After all, somebody has to be the practical one, and it isn’t going to be Peter.

“I’ll trade your stuff next time, Moony,” Sirius responds, cheerful, and drops a book wrapped in brown paper into Remus’ lap. “This should keep you quiet, anyway.”

Remus fingers the wrapping for a moment, and smiles.

It’s not the best part of being a revolutionary, being shut in a little more than a box with his three best, dreadful, awful, _wonderful_ friends. But, well, all things considered, it’s hardly the worst either.

-


End file.
